


I've lined up with the libertines now, come what may

by middlemarch



Category: GLOW (TV 2017)
Genre: Actors and Directors, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Conversations, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Romance, The Libertines - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27499105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She'd have to get home somehow but figuring out how seemed impossible. To begin with, where was home?
Relationships: Justine Biagi & Sam Sylvia, Sam Sylvia/Ruth Wilder
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	I've lined up with the libertines now, come what may

“You’re a nightmare,” “Let’s go home,” “You didn’t get the part,” “Come on, Ruth.”

The words tumbled around her head, the timbre of his voice altering second to second, eager, angry, pitying, indifferent, fracturing and reforming like a kaleidoscope, with a kaleidoscope’s sickening, hypnotic hold. She felt a wave of nausea and swallowed it back, tried to center herself the way she would in an acting exercise, becoming aware of the rise of her diaphragm, the turtleneck snug around her neck. It wasn’t working. She still felt his body against her, his arms, his hands keeping her close, the urgency of his lips, his tongue in her mouth. And then the look in his eyes when he’d pulled away, a look she hadn’t understood, not even once he started talking and everything became so much worse than she could have ever imagined. It should not have been a surprise when he drove away, but that had hurt too. That he would go and that she would still love him. She closed her eyes, telling herself that when she opened them, she’d have to start moving. 

The sounds of the city were familiar in a way that Vegas never was. It still would never be Nebraska, no one was going to walk over and ask if she was okay. 

“Ruth, are you okay?” Sam said, his Cadillac pulled up to the curb again, window rolled down, as if he’d never left, like he’d been waiting for her to get in the passenger seat the whole time, patient as he could sometimes be when she most needed it. As he hadn’t been. She’d watched his brake-lights glow red as he drove away, the grey car drifting into the night like a shadow. She didn’t answer.

“Ruth, you okay?” he repeated, getting out of the car and walking over to wear she stood on the sidewalk. She wasn’t exactly sure what had been keeping her upright, pride or inertia or disbelief, but as he approached, whatever it was began to give way. 

“Hey,” he said, catching her elbow in the charcoal turtleneck she’d probably be burning in the desert when she got back to Vegas. The angle between them was awkward and it was only enough to keep her from falling down in the street like a drunk.

“Sitting down’s fine, yeah, nothing wrong with that,” he said. He followed her down to the sidewalk like it was the couch in the GLOW dressing room, like he could easily cross one leg over the other and reach across for his ever-present glass of liquor. Ruth felt the cold of the cement through her nylons, knowing one or both would snag and ruin the pair. 

“You going to say anything? I don’t have a monologue prepared,” he said. 

“Fine. Why’d you come back?”

“Because leaving was a fucking mistake,” he answered. “Because I was an asshole.”

“You don’t say,” she retorted, obscurely proud of herself for managing the tone. He smiled in approval.

“I’m sorry, Ruth,” he said. The hell of it was, he really did sound sorry. The hell of it was that changed nothing about the wasteland that was her life.

“What are you sorry for, Sam?”

“All of it,” he said, shaking his head. “Fuck that, I’m not sorry for kissing you. I’ll never be sorry for that. But everything else, yeah.”

“Would you have told me about not getting the part if I hadn’t told you I was in love with you? Would you have told me tonight or let me drive back to Vegas and wait for a call?”

“I don’t know. I thought when I saw you at the bar, I’d know and then when you said you were in love with me, was it too late, I wasn’t thinking about anything else but you,” he said. 

“I guess that’s supposed to make me feel better,” she said. “It doesn’t.”

“I get it. I didn’t think things would go like this, I want you to know that,” he said. 

“Okay, now I know that,” she said. She braced herself for a resurgence of his irritation, that she wasn’t apologizing for overreacting or thanking him for coming back. He touched her hand lightly, drawing her to look at him. 

“I didn’t want you to read for the part, Ruth,” he said.

“What? I don’t—”

“I wanted you for the role. No audition. I knew you could play it, I’ve seen you,” he said. “I know you, once you forgot it was me directing, once you were with the other actors, you’d fucking nail it.”

“Then why? Why did you ask me to drive four hours to come to LA? Why didn’t I get cast?” she said.

“It’s Justine’s screenplay,” he said as if that explained everything. Ruth just stared at him, waiting. He shrugged, rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. “She made the call…it’s complicated.”

“What’s complicated? Aren’t you the director? You’ve never had a problem making calls as a director before.”

“I’m also her father,” he said.

“So, this is you making up for lost time? This is all the ponies and puppies and birthday presents you missed rolled up into one?” Ruth snapped. It was mean, but wasn’t she allowed to be mean under the circumstances?

“I have to let her make her own mistakes,” he said. “I won’t always be around when she does. I haven’t been. I need to be now.”

“So, letting me put everything on the line, hope for a real acting job, finally, that’s a fair exchange to you? After you went months without calling, to dangle what you had to know was what I always dreamed of in front of me and then let it get snatched away,” she said.

“You’re an adult. I knew you could handle it,” he said. “She’s nineteen. She’s so young, so fucking young.”

“Maybe you’re wrong,” she said.

“Maybe. Not about this though. A lot of other shit, yeah. Not calling, not wondering why you were sending me those notes when you knew I didn’t give a fuck about them,” he said. 

“An hour ago, I thought everything in my life was finally coming together. And now I’m sitting on the sidewalk and everything’s crap,” she said. “Everyone else is going somewhere, Debbie, Sheila, Justine. I thought this role was mine, I thought, after the bar, I thought you and I—"

“I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m not good at this shit, my track record is ample fucking proof of that, but I’m sorry, Ruth. You, me, us, that doesn’t have to be crap,” he said. “We can keep sitting here as long as you like. Or I can take you somewhere else, doesn’t have to be my house. We don’t have to do anything but talk. Coffee-shop, another bar. You haven’t had any dinner.”

“I can’t imagine eating anything,” she said. 

“I’ll be honest, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go as long as you let me go with you,” he said. “I don’t want to believe I’ve already fucked everything up beyond repair.”

“I don’t know,” Ruth said. “This isn’t a scene we can run again. You’re not the director here and I’m not acting.”

“I’m still in love with you, even if I’m fucking bad at showing it. At knowing what you need from me that way,” he said. “I want to figure that out. I want to sit at a table and talk and take you to bed, I want watch you sleep and holler at you to hurry the fuck up and make you smile, just for me, and kiss your bare shoulders while you’re reading my screenplay and telling me the woman’s written for shit.”

“Does the diner have banana cream pie?” Ruth asked.

“Yeah. And Key lime. You want a slice? I’m buying,” he said, offering her the shyest smile she’d ever seen from him. It didn’t make him look young. He looked like he wanted her, like he knew he could lose her.

“You’re not going to have one?”

“I’m on a diet, I’ll tell you all about it over dessert,” he said. He got to his feet about as gracefully as he could have hoped and reached a hand down to her; when she was standing, he brought her hand to his lips for the briefest of kisses. It was a courtly gesture that could have seemed phony, except that his eyes were serious. When she didn’t pull it back, he took a step closer, near enough to take her into his arms and hold her. Not tightly, but as if he never wanted to stop.

“I missed you too,” he said. “I don’t want to miss you again. Whatever that takes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hāfez, Faces of Love.


End file.
